What is an eating disorder?

An eating disorder is a mental illness. If you have an eating disorder you will have a difficult relationship with food and may use food to manage your feelings. This may be eating too much or too little. You may become obsessed with food and your eating patterns.

Anyone can develop an eating disorder. It doesn’t matter what your age, gender, cultural or racial background is. It is estimated that there are 725,000 people in the UK with an eating disorder.

Eating disorders are not simply about food. They can be about difficult or painful feelings which you are finding hard to face. Focusing on food can be a way of disguising these problems, even from yourself.